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Öyvind Fahlström

“Öyvind Fahlström was a Swedish artist who spent his childhood in Brazil, and died in the U.S.A. His World Map was painted in 1972, not long after Fuller imagined his utopia. Fahlström’s map recalls the Mercator projection: but the oceans have practically disappeared, the continents are crushed or swollen by the political pressures that the world-economy brings. Space overflows with clashes between the wealthy and the downtrodden, the CIA and the freedom-fighters, the capitalists, the communists, the revolutionaries. Fahlström was interested in resistance and excess: by which I mean politics plus overflowing subjectivity, figurative invention. For him, a map was a flat, rule-governed space for a strict social game; but it also was an open territory for imaginary play.”

Fahlström use of visual and contextual work within his maps really impresses m. Using present political context to imagine an alternative world via the use of maps and illustration is very interesting. However it is the text and image that integrated into the map that I would want to explore further on. Looking towards adding text for context to the images makes the image less interesting to children but more interesting to adults who like to know little facts about thing as a way of keeping stimulated. I would say that unlike Julie, this does not capture your attention due to the duller colour scheme and small text.